HOPE VI Transformation of 12 Blocks Set To Begin

03/28/04
MICHAEL TOMBERLIN
News staff writer

HOPE VI will begin a transformation into Park Place in the coming days, a 12-block downtown development that will include more than the 637 units of mixed-income housing.

Other plans call for reviving the former Phillips High building into a new elementary and middle school. The former Powell Elementary campus could become a museum and house a culinary arts incubator program.

A new YMCA Youth Development Center is planned for the former Phillips gym site. The centerpiece will be an improved Marconi Park, with plans for new landscaping, art, a fountain and amphitheater.

As soon as this week, work will begin on constructing the first residences of Park Place. The $20 million first phase will include 197 one- to four-bedroom units that will include garden apartments, flats, townhouses and a three-story apartment building. The first residents will begin moving in the third quarter of this year.

Then 198 homes will be built in the $22 million second phase set to begin in the second half of this year. Those homes should be ready for people to move in during the third or fourth quarter of 2005.

The third phase will have 186 homes in seven buildings. The fourth and final phase will have 56 townhouses for sale at market rates. Because that phase will be determined by market demand, the start date could be moved earlier to coincide with the second or third phases.

All told, Park Place will have 581 homes and apartments for rent and 56 for sale. More than $100 million in public and private investment will be spent creating Park Place over the next two to three years.

Diverse neighborhoods

Sixty percent of the residences will fall under the affordable housing program, 40 percent at market rates. With that arrangement, Park Place and other Hope VI projects look to create diverse neighborhoods.

"The idea isn't just to bring a bunch of rich people from the suburbs back downtown," said Cathy Crenshaw, president of Sloss Real Estate Group Inc. Sloss is developing Park Place along with Integral Properties of Atlanta and the Birmingham Housing Authority.

"This is to be a real mixed-use, diverse, vibrant neighborhood," she said. "If we can create this in Birmingham, I think that says a whole lot."

Pulling off Park Place is requiring funding from a number of sources. Federal, state, county and city dollars are part of the mix. Some elements, such as the new YMCA Youth Development Center, other commercial development and the school projects will take money from other sources.

Crenshaw said many elements of the master plan, such as defining the Phillips school project and tailoring the amenities of Marconi Park, will include ideas from the residents.

Having all of the cooks with a hand and a say in the pot will not spoil the Park Place stew, Crenshaw insists.

"I think what you come up with in the process we're going through is something much richer, much deeper than if you had one developer doing it all."

Leigh Ferguson, director of urban development at Sloss, said that to make Park Place a neighborhood that lasts, the development has to take place slowly and with the involvement of many.

"By the time we're done, this process will have taken four or five years or more, which is as it should be," Ferguson said. "The people who live here have to have a personal, vested interest in the project for it to be successful."

He said full development of all the phases will likely go well into 2006 or even later. Old school, new life:

The Phillips school project will include a study by the Annenburg Institute, a national group that is studying not only its possible use as an elementary and middle school, but also its function as a family support center and community auditorium.

The Birmingham Board of Education is working with the developers on the planning of the potential school.

The estimated $10 million renovation of Phillips would require funding from sources outside the school board, which already spent $1 million renovating the ground floor.

A new roof and heating and air-conditioning systems would be among the most costly renovations, Crenshaw said.

An artist is designing features for Marconi Park to help make it the center of the community as the developers intend.

More than housing

The Rushton Foundation, which owns the block between Seventh and Eighth avenues north and 25th Street and Carraway Boulevard, is working with Jones Valley Urban Farms and other organizations to have a nature center and community garden.

The YMCA is in a $7 million fund-raising campaign to construct and operate the Youth Development Center that will incorporate the former Phillips High gymnasium.

AmSouth Bank, which owns one of the 12 blocks, has provided $8 million in low-income housing tax credits to the Park Place project. AmSouth is also supporting the YMCA's project and is exploring plans for the redevelopment of its own block, which now includes a bank branch and employee parking lot.

A grocery building could become a coffee shop and bakery under the development plan. Other retail, restaurant and even office spaces are possible in the third phase and on some surrounding properties as part of future development.

The smokestack that once heated the neighborhood will remain as a landmark. A culinary center is also planned with possible participation from Culinard and others in the former Powell Elementary cafeteria building. The third building on the campus, the Powell annex, currently houses a church.

Bankhead Towers is starting its own multimillion-dollar renovation. For Crenshaw, it's exciting to see construction begin and the community that will emerge on the spot of the old Metropolitan Gardens.

"This is going to transform that whole area," she said.